Updates Archive

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12-07-08 The Gadgeteer skill Electric Net has been moved from level 9 to level 11. It has increased in cost, but its effectiveness now increases with level. The Shock Grenade skill has been bumped up a bit, too. 12-07-08 Added a level-16 Naturalist skill, courtesy of Jean Auel. 12-06-08 The to-hit and dodge chances on scaling foes ought to be a little easier to overcome. Details on the forums. Oh, and there's a new leaderboard, which I suspect this change will dramatically affect, soon.

12-02-08 December's Item of the Month is in the Wok of Stars. Sorry for the delay, but the Venus-Jupiter transit of the moon messed up my stargazing.

12-01-08 About that IotM ... make that "a day or two." No more than two. I swear. Had to pick something complicated this month.

11-30-08 I'm going to need another day on December's item of the month. Expect it after rollover on the first.

11-25-08 There were some welding recipes from the new zone that didn't have all the components properly marked, but they do now. Sorry about that.

11-24-08 There's a new mountain zone out there; players of a moderate level (15+) will find things to do there.

11-17-08 There's some more PvP gear in the arena armory.

11-11-08 I've started a recipe contest on the forums. Submit all entries on the forms only, please.

11-11-08 There's a new chat in town, and someone's gonna pay. By which I mean enjoy it for free. Lots of documentation in the game manual.

11-09-08 Somerset Square just got a facelift.

11-08-08 There's a new, inexpensive sidekick option in Jax Pizza (during open hours). Just remember, you get what you pay for.

11-06-08 Oh no! Buzzkill's back and making more of a mess in St. Anne Park. Will he never learn?

11-05-08 I put in a couple of secret things today. I can't say what, but I don't want anyone to think I'm slacking.

11-03-08 There's now a candy-making recipe, a recipe for a very sought after digital item, and a neglected weapon got a little polish.

11-02-08 There's gum in the galleria, which is at least marginally better than having bats in the belfrey.

11-01-08 November's item of the month is available in the Wok of Stars.

11-01-08 Candy isn't just for Halloween anymore. It's a permanent addition to the game. Surprise! (Note that the generous holiday-themed candies were just for the event, but some foes will still drop non-holiday candy normally from now on.) More to come over the course of the month.

10-31-08 Expect the item of the month sometime tomorrow. It needs a little more testing before release.

10-31-08 Candy, candy, candy, candy, candy, candy, candy, candy, candy, candy, candy, candy!

10-31-08 Starting with Halloween and continuing through the month of November, we'll be holding a "30 Days of Twilight" festival to celebrate our anniversary. More details on the forms.

10-25-08 The PvP scoreboard now provides some useful filters, and if you're attacked you'll get alerts from the main page or anywhere in the arena.

10-23-08 PvP info is now visible through the arena scoreboard instead of being sent via message. I know it needs more functionality, but that will have to come this weekend.

10-18-08 A handful of PvP tweaks today, all denoted on the forums.

10-16-08 Since some people don't *gasp!* play every day, I'm gonna say there's likely to be a one-day "holiday" event somewhere around 2-4 days from today. Consider yourself warned, if you worry about that sort of thing; and never trust the first 15 minutes after rollover, as it's easy for me to get new holidays mixed up.

10-15-08 I've adjusted the PvP rank gains and losses a tad, and also reduced the benefit that rank gives to starting points (didn't realize ranks would get that high).

10-14-08 The next generation of PvP is now out. It is now "real" in the sense that it affects rank, includes prizes, and allows for wearing PvP-approved gear. Details are outlined on the PvP page of the game manual.

10-11-08 The PvP arena is back open, with some new customization options, available through the "locker room" and new rules, which are outlined on the PvP page of the game manual.

10-09-08 Another ten (or so) enemies from the industry district (and downtown) now have fancy messages when they hit (or miss) you (or you).

10-03-08 The quote field in your player profile now recognizes line breaks.

09-30-08 October's Item of the Month is available in the Wok of Stars.

09-30-08 I haven't gotten enough spelling error reports lately, so a large handful of old foes have brand new hit and miss messages. Collect them all!

09-19-08 Oh no! A battle of the bands in St. Anne Park has turned into a riot of massive proportions. It's sure to be an all-night struggle, but the police could use your help restoring order.

09-09-08 Collectors and showoffs may find something entertaining in the new shop in the Seedy district.

09-06-08 Fixed a bug that was causing Armadillo Armor to be negated upon leveling up.

09-06-08 The effect for the squidopus ink has been changed.

09-04-08 I've finally patched all of the numerous ways of skipping out on noncombat adventures. Thanks to those who sent in bug reports over the months, boo to the dirty exploiters who hoped I wouldn't fix it. This is good though, because ...

09-04-08 At the same time I've also fully implemented the sneakiers and targe's bonuses, which affect combat/noncombat rates. Also ...

09-04-08 Naturalists and Gadgeteers should now each have level 14 skills.

08-31-08 September's Items of the Month are available in the Wok of Stars.

08-19-08 Fixed a massive bug that may have made the new stuff inaccessible to many players. Also added even more content to flesh out the zones.

08-18-08 Some more stuff has been added to yesterday's zones, including a recipe that is likely to be wildly popular.

08-17-08 The mostly peaceful St. Anne Park is now a permanent fixture downtown. Heroes of a certain reputation may find some excitement there, though. There will be a little more to come in the next day or two, also.

08-06-08 Sidekicks are multi-usable now.

08-05-08 Fixed a bug where many spells were using base Intellect instead of buffed intellect to calculate damage.

08-05-08 Ranged weapons have been drastically changed in combat. As per usual, more details on the forums.

08-02-08 Pvp version 0.2 is now out. Looks the same, but calculations are a little different, and there are some tiebreakers.

07-31-08 The new Item of the Month is in the Wok of Stars.

07-29-08 The occasional message deletion bug has been fixed.

07-28-08: Your Inbox: now with more dele-tastic functionality!

07-27-08: PvP has been adjusted already: Early indicators showed the range of power was too big, so I've decreased the range of the players.

07-27-08: A super-preliminary PvP testing ground is available in the Seedy Casinos district. See the forums for more details.

07-11-08: A couple more reputation-affecting adventures have been added to the game.

07-09-08: Heroes of certain reputations might now have access to certain new locations.

07-06-08: There's now a long-awaited way to transmute advanced class talismans. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to discover.

07-04-08: July's Item of the Month is in the Wok of Stars. There's some notes in the forums, too.

06-30-08: Sidekicks/companions can be dismissed on the character page. In other news, the IotM will be a bit late because it needs a day or two of testing. Really sorry for the delay, but it'll be worth it in the long run.

06-27-08: The Joiner's Club now accurately reflects past champions of the chair, as advertised.

06-27-08: The obviously missing "all" option has been added to the Use sort options.

06-26-08: There's a couple of filters on the Use page now.

06-24-08 The changes predicted below have come to pass. Details seen here.

06-07-08 Changes are coming to the "companion" spells like summon wolf/buffalo and wind warrior. For the curious and concerned, vague details (mmm ... oxymoronic) can be seen here.

06-01-08 June's item of the month is now in the Wok of Stars.

05-31-08 Due to extenuating circumstances, June's item of the month will be delayed by a day or two.

05-15-08 There's a new structure in Somerset.

05-13-08 Caffeine items are multi-usable now. Just what we need: jittery heroes double- lattes.

05-13-08 Fixed a couple of major bugs in the last few days that allowed for using items/skills while in combat, or for any class to "tame" any foe. Also, the output when using bottles of pills, smuggler's boxen, and the like is formatted better.

05-11-08 You can use multiples of many items now. (Caffeine is coming, but I want to make sure the other bits work okay first.)

05-08-08 Still working on some of the other content from the new zone, but more of the equipment is doing useful things now.

05-07-08 Those new-fangled potions ought to be working now.

05-03-08 Something has just been added to the game. Should be easy to find. And yeah, there's still a lot of gaps, I'm still working on it, but this'll get you started.

04-30-08 May's Item of the Month is available in the Wok of Stars in Somerset Square.

04-18-08 Each hero now gets a "reputation" that can change depending on the choices they make. (Sorry, there's no "evil" reputation for heroes. Just different ways to fight crime.)

04-15-08 After much delay and gnashing of teeth, the forums are back up. Anyone who registered in the last couple of days before they went down might need to send me a reminder to activate your account, or possibly re-register. Sorry about that.

04-13-08 Fixed a bug where heroes who transmogrified would be unusually powerful for a while.

04-01-08 As Mister T would say, "Happy April, Fool!".

03-31-08 It shouldn't take a phrophet to realize that April's Item of the Month is available in the Wok of Stars.

03-30-08 Just a note for folks who don't stop in every day: there ought to be some entertainment value at the very beginning of April. Consider that community-service foreshadowing.

03-26-08 Custom avatars are now available. They can be purchased from the Wok of Stars in Somerset Square. As it's completely new, we've got no idea how long it will take to complete them at this point--please have patience until we can establish a regular system.

03-19-08 Being sick sucks. Unfortunately, that's the only update I have. Happy spring everyone.

03-15-08 The to-hit and damage benefits of Charge of the Bovine and Trample of the Rhino have been improved. Also, fixed an oversight where a new choice adventure was firing 80% of the time when it should have been occurring MUCH less often.

03-13-08 The words "Last Area Patrolled" now often link to the map which contains the zone you last patrolled. It may be a little quirky for a few days.

03-09-08 Logging out and back in no longer resets the foe type in scaling zones (robots, pit), so stop doing that.

03-09-08 The third robot camp now has things in it, for those who have unlocked it. A couple of new-ish items have had names changed to be funnier, in ways that shouldn't confuse anyone trying to find them, but I'm warning ya here anyway.

03-08-08 The /day command has been added to chat to show what day it is, without having to close chat.

03-08-08 The hospital now removes "Needs Stitches" and "Internal Injuries" effects when you heal there. The sickbay removes those plus "Concussed".

03-08-08 HP and PP stealing items now cap when the foe runs out of HP. (Example: dealing 200 damage to a 10 HP foe, you only steal a fraction of the 10 HP, not the 200.)

03-08-08 Computers no longer give you their bonuses if you lose a fight, excepting S.U.I.T. and ASX.

03-06-08 The Row-bot-base (if unlocked) now has a functioning "store" of sorts.

03-05-08 Another bit of the space station is ready, and with it the level cap has been elimintated!

03-02-08 After much delay, the next phase of the space station storyline is now ready.

02-29-08 March's Item of the Month is in the Wok of Stars.

02-19-08 There's a new level 16 Gadgeteer skill, Battle Armor.

02-18-08 Just a friendly note -- if you send me a message via the contact form, please, please make sure your email address works. There are a couple of people out there who forgot their passwords, but I can't contact you because your email address isn't working.

02-17-08 The chat channels have been condensed. Channel 1 is Newbie, Fun, and Games. So that's great for asking basic questions, and for goofing around. Channel 2 is Gameplay and Trade. That's for more game-related conversations, spoilers, and financial transactions.

02-16-08 One more summoning item has been added to the Pouch of Lost Things. This won't be a regular occurrence, just something I'd been meaning to put in.

02-14-08 The /who command now works. It will show you anyone who is in chat (or has been in the last 60 seconds ... may not be more precise than that). I anticipate demands for a /hide or /lurk option almost immediately. This will cost you $10. :P

02-10-08 There's another leaderboard--heh--with the other boards on the Star-Board Port. Heh.

02-09-08 On the wear page you can click the equipment category (helmet, gloves, etc.) to jump to that section of your inventory. When you're down below you can click the category name to jump back to the top. Interfacilicious!

02-05-08 If you have a full Pouch of Many Lost Things, it can be dumped out all at once rather than clicking multiple times.

02-04-08 Chat has /whois, /exit, and /help commands. Details, as always, in the manual. (Which, by the way, is probably a better resource than /help.)

02-03-08 There's a money changer in the casino so you can convert your chips into items. Mostly this is designed in order to hide your wealth if you so choose, so I can change the character page back to show chips again. This may also be beneficial for those who tend to mis-click on expensive items in the Auction House.

02-02-08 Space station construction continues apace for those who have unlocked it. And for those who haven't, if you meet certain criteria Susan Novak will give you a hint.

01-31-08 Feb's item of the month is in the Wok of Stars in Somerset Square.

01-30-08 The "searching for U.I.T." effect is now called the "T.a.I.L.o.R." effect. Because it's funnier. The "amulet of corruption" is now called the "corrupt amulet". Not because it's funnier. The "reinforced harness" is now called the "sturdy harness" because it's less misleading. Might as well get all that out of my system at once.

01-29-08 Yesterday's glitch seems to have spawned a higher-than-normal amount of attempts to cheat. Just a reminder, folks: multi-abuse will get you deleted. If you've got more than one character, they're not supposed to interact with each other.

01-28-08 I made a small but disastrous error which gave everyone millions of chips. I had to roll everyone's chips back to their total from last night at rollover. Everything else should be untouched. I'm working on ways to try to be fair to anyone who may have lost chips because of this.

01-26-08 Some changes to the auction house. Sellers can delist an item if nobody has bid on it yet. However, sellers can no longer bid on their own auctions. They can, however, take an item at the buy-it-now price, if one has been specified. Also, there are now minimum bid increments in the auction house, as a function of price--I'm skeptical they'll help much, but a lot of people asked for them, so I've added them. The minimum increase is shown in the Notes column on the right.

01-22-08 There's protection in the Rock Paper Scissors code so that if you accidentally click away in the middle of a game you can return to the and finish the game. That's better treatment than most non-seedy casinos will give you!

01-21-08 Long rollover tonight, while the tech support guys make a change and reboot the server. Probably will last 20 minutes or so.

01-21-08 There's a new store in the rooftops for those who have it unlocked. Might be a handy option for some folks.

01-19-08 It's been a cruel, cruel winter, and apparently that's made me a cruel, cruel game designer. One of the necessary ingredients for today's mystery puzzle wasn't dropping properly, and I missed it. I can't tell you how bad I feel about this. The new item is available from a man with a sword--either of two different men with swords, actually. I'm giving an extra hour to everyone at rollover for some wasted turns.

Also, unrelated to this, each day will now start at 6 p.m. instead of 7. It's not giving you extra time, but it means you can squeeze in more turns before it's time for work, or not have quite so many pile up for Frayday.

01-18-08 Okay, so the item assembling puzzle is afoot! Remember the 48-hour no-spoiler rule, please. Also, the /r function in chat now works - it sends a PM to the last person you sent a PM to.

01-16-08 There's something new out there you can do with your computers. (Not terribly original, but new.)

01-13-08 If you've finished the university quest, Susan Novak is now visitable any time. She doesn't have much to say at the moment, though.

01-13-08 Your journal now has an other notes section to list some of your non-quest accomplishments.

01-11-08 A few leaderboards are now available in the Bayside area of town, at the Starboard Port.

01-09-08 Also just a little teaser: on Jan 18 (so rollover on Friday going into Saturday) I'll open up an in-game puzzle of sorts involving assembling a mystery item.

01-09-08 I've set it up so that auctions which go to their full duration also send the results (items or chips) to the appropriate parties via an in-game message. I don't intend to keep it this way permanently, but this gives me better record keeping to check for any bugs that may occur. If anyone notices any funniness (we're talking stuff that's not ha-ha funny), please let me know.

01-07-08 - They've been too small to announce individually, but more than a dozen new items and a few effects and whatnot have gone into the game over the last week or two. Mostly additions to older zones and recipes and such. Also, outboxes now display the name and picture of the sent item instead of just the item number.

12-29-07 - The way critical hits and fumbles are calculated (and described on items) has been changed.

12-26-07 - A number of foes have either elemental resistances or elemental weaknesses.

12-24-07 - Merry Christmas, everybody. I know I said I wasn't going to do it, but there's a little something waiting in your stocking for you.

12-23-07 - Fixed the bug where the wolf/buffalo weren't scaring each other off if someone else buffed you. Also caught a server clock issue that was causing auctions to end two hours prematurely.

12-22-07 - A small (but fun!) set of items/mechanic has been added.

12-21-07 - There's a new zone tucked away in there somewhere.

12-17-07 - The game no longer burns a turn if you visit a place with nothing to do (like the beach when you can't go under water), or if you accidentally end up someplace you shouldn't be (double-clicking a choice adventure).

12-14-07 - The bugs causing you to be able to fumble when you shouldn't fumble should now be fixed.

12-10-07 - The 3-day auction has been returned to the auction house.

12-02-07 - The auction house has been updated to show a) auctions that you have running and b) open auctions for which you have the highest bid. The auction house also now shows how many bids an item has received.

11-28-07 - Fixed the bug that was preventing the main map from giving you any pending buffs.

11-27-07 - The level 5 quest has been implmented. See Rand for details.

11-24-07 - Rather than completely rewriting chat, I'm hoping I can adjust it incrementally. I've added multiple channels and reduced the font a little--hopefully both will make it seem less crowded.

11-21-07 - By popular demand the Auction House now sorts items in each category alphabetically. Additionally, auction durations have been shortened to 1, 3, 12, and 24 hours, and the estimated "time left" has been fine-tuned a bit. Also, caught a time bug which was causing evening auctions to end half a day early.

11-19-07 - Oh no! Captain Buzzkill has broken out of jail and is threatening the entire city with an unhappiness machine that he's set up in St. Anne Park in Downtown Twilight. Only you can help!

Nov 18: There's now an FAQ section in the Game Manual.

Nov 15: Terribly sorry, but a massive security hole blitzed everyone's inventory. I've had to roll back to last night, meaning anything since yesterday's rollover has been lost. I'll be sure to reinstate any donation items as soon as I can, but everything else will be lost, unfortunately. Again, my apologies.

Nov 14: All of you who had computers stuck decrypting something should have been given the effect to get it unstuck. Please send me an in-game message if I missed you, or a very detailed message if it happens again.

Nov 14: I posted in the forums but forgot to mention here: rollover has been changed to 11:10 Eastern time (that's GMT -5, I believe). Yesterday, because of some issues with the server clock, it went off two hours early.

Nov 8: Sorry to say this, but I had to put the game on pause until I can get the new servers going. I received 150 bug reports today, of which all but a handful were directly related to the lag, and the 500 errors are getting ridiculous. The longer I let this go, the more time I'll have to spend cleaning up screwy results, and I don't think anyone wants that. Hopefully it'll just be a couple of days, and then you can get back in and make up for lost time on the new servers. Thanks for your patience.

Nov 8: Twilight Heroes: now with testimonials.

Nov 6: Sorry for the outage, folks. I wanted to try pushing a few changes that might reduce the load on the server. Not sure if it's going to help much, but it's worth a shot. Also, I've been alerted that the 500 errors are eating chips if you gamble. It's not going to be a quick fix, so please note for the moment that you're at your own risk.

Nov 6: Just wanted to affirm a couple of things. 1) I know the lag is horrible. I'm working on it. There's more in the forums if you want details. 2) Please don't report slowness or 500 errors -- they're simply a side effect of the lag. 3) Chat is having lots of trouble and needs more channels -- it's my next priority after the lag. 4) I'm reading all other bug reports and messages, but they come in slowly, and for the most part, unless they're breaking the game I won't be able to do anything about them until after lag and chat are fixed, but I will read them at some point. Thanks for your patience and understanding!

Nov 2: Some foes now have elemental attacks, so you can put that elemental resistance to good use! Also, elemental resistance caps at 50% reduction.

Oct 31: November's Item of the Month is available in the Wok of Stars in Somerset Square. For this month only, since it's a new thing, the IotM will remain in the store for two months (so through the end of December).

Oct 31: Hey, look! It's a web-based superhero computer game! In the style of such classics as Kingdom of Loathing, Galaxy of Fear, and Restaurant at the End of Las Vegas!

A Few Updates are missing here

Sept 17: If all goes well, we're going to have a proper rollover tonight, with a forced logout and that most hated of all things known as maint.php.

Sept 16: Talons of the Raptor has been significantly improved.

Sept 15: There's a new area to explore in Bayside. (And before anyone asks, yeah, I'll try to rework the nav to fit it in.)

Sept 11: Clicking on an effect listed in the left-hand pane will now pop up a description of that effect. (Or a description of the skill, if the effect comes from a skill.)

Sept 11: A number of VR Center-related issues have been fixed.

Sept 10: Getting beaten up now comes with the possibility of a few more serious consequences.

Sept 9: A lot of foes have had their stats slightly retooled to fit a more balanced progression of difficulty. Foes at higher levels may be a bit tougher--not sure how noticeable the effect will be.

Sept 8: There's a couple more late-night additions also listed in the same post below.

Sept 8: I've made a number of small updates which are listed for brevity's sake on this forum post.

Sept 5: Hey, sorry for the long slow quiet month and a half. I think I've got stuff in order so that I can start making progress again. Also, I'm setting a date for the game going beta: October 31, 2007. See more details here.

July 16: Added roughly a metric ton (in other words, about 20) of foe and adventure images today. I think there's only one or two still missing images--if you see any that are broken, please let me know.

July 10: A handful of foes got non-generic hit/miss messages today. In addition, a slightly larger handful of different critters got pictures today.

July 9: Also caught a whole bunch of bugs that were probably keeping most skills that give effects from registering properly. These should all be fixed now.

July 9: A bug in the sleeping draught is fixed. Also, I've been going through the foe and item descriptions, adding them where none existed and improving some of the weakest ones. I think I've gotten them all now, and I feel I can safely declare the game at a minimum 1% funnier!

July 2: Thanks to oodleook for catching that some of the healing skills weren't working. They should be fixed now.

June 30: Also, I've changed my name again. (I know, because it wasn't confusing enough last time). I swear it's the last time though. Probably. Anyway, you can find me in-game or on the forums as Ryme now.

June 30: I'm done with the massive invisible updates. As far as I can tell, everything is working exactly the way it used to, but now with about one hundredth of the load on the server on pages where skills were involved. If anything seems to be working improperly, please let me know, but for now it ought to be safe to get back in the water.

June 29: Good news: I fixed a bug that made every turn consume twice as much time as it should have. Bad news: I'm in the middle of a complicated changeover on the effects, and it's likely that things are really messed up right now. PLAY AT YOUR OWN RISK.

May 13 2007: I'm not done, but there are some penalties now for being beaten up.

Also, as of rollover tonight, auctions older than 1 week old will be deleted. Once the game gets busy, I'll probably shorten this, but in the meantime that should be enough time to use as a reference.

Also also: The Wear Things page is a bit more organized.

Additionally: Lots of new foe pictures today, scattered all over the place.

And finally: The "motorcycle helmet not existing in the game" oversight has been seen to. It's not exciting, but it's something on a Monday morning when there are big real-life things afoot.

May 6 2007: The item descriptions are now properly randomized to discourage peeking. In other news, happy birthday to me! I just hit six digits (in binary).

May 5 2007: There's some non-welding craftable stuff. See your workbench for details. Don't kill yourself looking for recipes, though, as there probably aren't a dozen working ones yet. More will come as quickly as I can think them up, though.

May 1 2007: Just made a ton of back-end coding streamlining adjustments to the site. If all went well, you won't even notice anything. But as I touched nearly every file in the game, if anything goofy shows up please let me know.

April 29 2007: There's a couple of new items in the military surplus store that might be worth playing around with (once you go back to your hideout). The content's a little short on pictures and descriptions, but the functionality is good.

April 17 2007: We can now accept donations through PayPal. Anyone who donates more than $5 will receive a fun and useful in-game gift. See the Donate link in the top navigation once you've logged in.

April 17 2007: You can now also donate through Amazon.

April 14 2007: Don't get too excited, but the first half of the computer creation process stuff is active. You still can't do anything with computers, though.

April 10 2007: While the player base is still small, I've added a "show all auctions" feature to the auction house. This will probably go away later when the house gets big, but for now it's probably useful.

April 7 2007: As far as I know, all bugs related to the move have been fixed. If anything isn't right, please let me know.

April 7 2007: Chat's back up. There's a couple small bugs I still need to fix, but nothing major. Consider the site back in business! Also, I had to wipe the forums, and I've set them up so that you have to notify me (Ross) in-game after you register so that I can let you in. It'll be a pain, but so was the spam.

Mar 20 2007: And lo! a mighty wind did sweep over the Wear Things page, and the faces of the powerful equipment became ashen, and were stricken, such that what should not be worn could not be worn, and it was good.

(In other news, apparently in 12 years of web design I've never used strike-through text, because I had to look up the HTML code to do it.)

Mar 20 2007: Just got finished adding some security measures. I think I've tested everything, but if you run afoul of one of these checks it will force log you out. Please let me know if you run into anything funny.